PDCA Basics: Building Habits for Your New Business

Hello, I am K.G., a former civil servant and administrative scrivener.

I imagine more and more people have heard the term "PDCA cycle" recently.

Even if you know the term, are you consciously applying the PDCA cycle in your daily work?

I myself sometimes forget if I am not mindful, and before I know it, I am just getting through the tasks right in front of me.

That is precisely why it is important to always be conscious of practicing PDCA.

In this installment on business startup preparation, I would like to talk about that very concept of "PDCA."

What is PDCA?

First, let's review what the term "PDCA" actually means.

I believe that continuously cycling through this process leads to steady business growth.

Focus on PDCA, Especially in the Early Stages of Business

I strongly recommend that those who have recently started their business set specific timeframes to run the PDCA cycle.

During the startup phase, there is a mountain of things to do, and it is easy to end up just reacting to things as they come.

However, it is precisely because it is this early stage that building the habit of planning, verifying, and improving will lead to future success.

Practicing PDCA in Sales and Customer Acquisition

Sales and customer acquisition are particularly important parts of any business.
Let's look at a concrete example of how to run the PDCA cycle in this area.

Preparation at the Plan Stage

During the preparation stage, it is important to think of as many ideas as possible for sales and customer acquisition.

Once you have generated many ideas, refine them into concrete measures and break them down into action goals.
If you have business revenue targets, you can determine your sales action goals by working backward from those figures, but since revenue is often unstable in the early stages of a business, I think it is better to focus on clearing the action goals for each individual measure.

What is important here is to understand that the time it takes for measures to show results varies significantly.

For example, it is not uncommon for customer acquisition using a website or SEO measures to take more than half a year to show results.

On the other hand, there are measures such as direct mail that show immediate results (where you can tell right away whether there is a response or not). *Of course, there are exceptional cases where you might be contacted years later.

Since the time axis differs for each measure in this way, it is necessary to set PDCA for each one.

Setting an Appropriate Verification Period

Because the time axis differs depending on the measure, it is necessary to run PDCA for each measure, and setting a verification period that matches the time axis is required.

For example, if you try to verify and improve your website in detail on a weekly basis in the early stages of opening your business, you will not be able to tell what the problem is or what the improvement effect was.

For measures that take time, it is recommended to set verification periods such as quarterly, half-yearly, or annually.

First, you create a plan, execute it (Do), perform a check (Check) after the verification period, and then add the necessary corrections (Action).

It is also a good idea to categorize measures by each verification period and compare the mutual effects of the measures.

Do means executing the Plan faithfully

When executing (Do) the plan, the point is to "execute it faithfully to the plan." Actually, many people cannot do this.

For example, there are cases where the goal was 100 items in the plan, but after doing 10, they stop because they think it is not very effective.

Of course, flexible response is important, but the problem is that you cannot implement the plan you created yourself. It is a problem that you cannot execute it, and there are also problems with the plan formulation itself, such as the reason why you set a plan for 100 items.

Analysis at the Check stage -> Action

At the check stage, the point is to verify from various perspectives.
Of course, not only quantitative perspectives such as KPI achievement rates and figures related to sales, but also qualitative perspectives including gut feelings such as the quality of customer reactions are also important.

Regarding the website, it is important to utilize various tools such as Google Analytics to thoroughly analyze "what is the cause" and "where the results are not appearing."

Based on the analysis results, please think carefully about Action improvements.

As something I want you to be conscious of here,
"link the analysis results with improvements."

Actually, this is from my experience when I was a civil servant. When I organized the PDCA for the annual work of the division and summarized each section, quite frequently,
"improvement measures that suddenly appear at the Action stage" would emerge.

When I ask why they came up with it, they say things like, "I've wanted to fix this for a while," or "I thought of it while thinking about improvements."
Of course, some of those might be effective, but it clearly shows that
the awareness of making improvements based on verification resultsis weak.
(Technically speaking, I want them to put it in as P, not A.)

The Importance of Prioritizing 'Do' in the Early Stages of Business

However,spending too much time on analysis is also something to consider.

First, if you are in the early stages of your business, the priority is toexecute (Do) the many plans you created during the preparation phase.

Take plenty of actions and check them from various angles.

Then, form new hypotheses and make adjustments. This repetition becomes the driving force that moves your business forward.

Evolution of PDCA According to Business Phase

Once you have customers through sales and marketing, and your business is on track, you need to change your perspective on PDCA as well.

Now, PDCA from a management perspective becomes important.

You need to structure what kind of customers you have and what kind of management you are aiming for in the future, then execute, check, and adjust accordingly.

Depending on the growth stage of the business, the scope and granularity of PDCA will also change.

PDCA Cycles of Various Sizes

PDCA cycles exist at various levels, from large to small.

There are large PDCA cycles for the entire business, as well as pinpoint PDCA cycles for individual tasks or measures.

The important thing is to have the awareness thatPDCA accompanies every task.

Even for each small task, developing the habit of thinking about "why am I doing this," "what results do I expect," "how did it actually go," and "how will I improve next time" is extremely important in business management.

This is an extreme example, but you might even want to have the mindset of running a PDCA cycle just to buy office supplies, haha.

A Specialty of Former Civil Servants?

For those who are former civil servants, I think running PDCA cycles is a specialty. (I was bad at it, though...)

I imagine you are constantly running PDCA cycles, from formulating annual budgets to execution and requesting budgets for the next fiscal year.

Regardless of the budget, it is important to handle various routine tasks and duties while keeping the annual business schedule in mind, then verify and improve upon them.

I believe that this daily routine as a civil servant will also work to your advantage when opening an administrative scrivener office.

Once you open your practice, it is important to always be conscious of the "Plan → Do → Check → Action" flow in your daily operations and make it a habit.

Whether you are in the early stages of opening your practice or your business is already on track, let's take another look at the PDCA cycle.

If you found this article even a little helpful, please
like and follow me.

Also, on my NOTE, I will be introducing various information such as:

・Worries during my time as a civil servant and my thoughts at the time of resignation
・The overwhelming competitive advantage that former civil servants possess
・Preparation for independent practice, etc.
・Sales methods after opening a practice, etc.
So please read my other articles as well, and I would appreciate it if you could leave a
comment or question (accepted via X DM).